The U.S. Constitution protects Lois Lerner from “big government,” House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer said Tuesday.

Lois Lerner has twice invoked the Fifth Amendment to avoid testifying in Congress about her time as the IRS’s head of tax-exempt organizations, despite evidence that the IRS targeted conservatives during her tenure.

In an interview on “Fox and Friends,” Hoyer claimed that Lerner’s use of the Fifth Amendment to resist congressional investigators is merely a tool to protect herself from the government.

Lerner’s attorney probably advised her not to testify, Hoyer said, “because the Republicans have been talking about criminal activity as opposed to trying to find out exactly what happened.”

“She has that constitutional right,” the congressman insisted. ”Obviously, a lot of people say read the Constitution, know what the Constitution means.”

“Understand the Constitution gives you protections against big government,” Hoyer said, “which is what a lot of people said.”

Hoyer also said Congress is trying to get to the bottom of the IRS’s behavior, before pleading with Fox News host Elisabeth Hasselbeck to move on to talk about “the really important things” confronting the country — including Obamacare and the Koch brothers.